Marti, Juan Jose

MARTI, JUAN JOSE (1570?-1604), Spanish novelist, was born at Orihuela (Valencia) about 1570. He graduated as bachelor of canon law at
Valencia in 1591, and in 1598 took his degree as doctor of canon law; in the latter year he was appointed co-examiner in canon law at Valencia University, and
held the post for six years. He died at Valencia, and was buried in the cathedral of that city on the 22nd of December 1604. Marti joined the Valencian Academia
de los nocturnes, under the name of " Atrevimiento," but is best known by another pseudonym, Mateo Lujan de Sayavedra, under which he issued an apocryphal
continuation (1602) of Aleman's Guzmdn de Alfarache (1599). Marti obtained access to Aleman's unfinished manuscript, and stole some of his ideas; this
dishonesty lends point to the sarcastic congratulations which Aleman, in the genuine sequel (1604) pays to his rival's sallies: "I greatly envy them, and should
be proud that they were mine." Martf's book is clever, but the circumstances in which it was produced account for its cold reception and afford presumption that
the best scenes are not original.

It has been suggested that Marti is identical with Avellaneda, the writer of a spurious continuation (1614) to Don Quixote; but he died before the first part
of Don Quixote was published (1605).